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Fashion, China, and e-commerce: how do they all come together?

Fashion, China, and e-commerce how do they all come together

The fashion industry has always been associated with volatility and fast changes. In recent times, a more interconnected global society has even started to push its transformation further, more rapidly than ever.


In the past, fashion was very much tied to popular culture and its development was an integral part of the creative industry ecosystem.

Nowadays, the rules of fashion are more and more dictated by finance, with M&A, geo-political order, and sustainability, if not technological innovation.

TLG Commerce, e-commerce agency based in China, whose clients span from cosmetics to fashion, has just completed a comprehensive study on fashion divided in different chapters, each of them looking at a specific sub-theme. TLG Commerce‘s expertise condensed in this study relates specifically to Chinese market and its reception of fashion in its all segmentation.

Source: TLG Commerce

It is quite interesting to see, that if in the past, Asia was much more absorbing global trends and slowly making the fit their daily routine, nowadays, and for the first time, something is changing. All world is turning to Asia, where things are happening much quicker, at a larger scale, and when results determine if a trend is there to stay or slowly fade out.

The study conducted by TLG Commerce provides an overview of fashion and its luxury declination, but also its product categories; Chinese market, observed no longer as one market, but as a compound of different provinces that do carry specificities that determine consumer behaviour; e-commerce, fed by competition and customers’ demand. This combination, adding the speed of the market, is leading the world to a new set of trends that this time come from the East.

The study is divided into two major parts. The first part includes seven chapters organized as follows:

Chapter 1 focuses on macro-trends in fashion, which have been shaping the fashion world globally, such sustainability, global harmonization of prices, customer data as new currency, and many more. All analysed in details and highly contextualize scenarios leading to the key message of adapt and innovate or disappear.
The first chapter is a background summary of the current global situation, while the following chapter unfolds specific themes.

Chapter 2 explains the relationship between e-commerce and fashion. It presents challenges and opportunities for businesses, breaking down the different product categories, but more importantly demystifies the idea that e-commerce platforms are a transactional place only.

Chapter 3 provides an overview on fashion in China, starting from history till recent times, identifying customer profiles and main channels for exchange. This chapter also explain how fashion and e-commerce come together today to target Millennials and GEN Z, as major fashionistas in China.

Chapter 4 is more focused on luxury and investigates the relationship between luxury and its Chinese consumers. After a historical digression about the transformation of the luxury market in China, the chapter unfolds the upcoming trends for the market.

Source: TLG Commerce

Chapter 5-6 and 7 analyse the three main sub-sectors: apparel, footwear and accessories.

Chapter 5 focuses on apparel and describes the major fashion trends within the sub-sector taking the reader through a journey from the rise of high-end athleisure to the “chinoiserie” style as an elegant touch that Chinese women are pursuing. In between them, one key takeaway emerges, which is the fact that Asia is contributing to the definition of global trends for the first time, and surely, not last.

Chapter 6 covers the rising category of footwear with numbers and trends, but also with interesting market insights on trends across different provinces in China. Same for Chapter 7 dedicated to accessories, which globally is the category driving sales in fashion.

Stay tuned to discover Part 2.

SEE ALSO : Fashion houses play on nostalgia


Part 1
Ch. 1 What happened to Fashion?
Ch. 2 E-commerce in the Fashion industry
Ch. 3 An introduction to fashion and e-commerce in China
Ch. 4 Has China fallen in love with luxury, or have luxury brands fallen in love with China?
Ch. 5 The clothing and apparel market in China
Ch. 6 The footwear market
Ch. 7 The accessory market in China

(Source: TLG Commerce)

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